It's No Great Honor Either!

Luke 6:20-31

Then Jesus looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Teviah, in Fiddler on the Roof says, “Dear God, you made many, many poor people. I realize there's no shame in being poor ... but it's no great honor either.” From my own personal brushes with not having enough money to buy the basics for my family, I have to say, I’m in full agreement with Teviah! 

But here in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus seems to have a completely different perspective. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor.” Not, blessed are the poor in SPIRIT, like in Matthew’s Gospel.  Nope! In Luke’s Gospel it’s blessed are the poor in wallet! But Jesus isn’t done.  Blessed are you who are hungry, he says.  Not, blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness like in Matthew’s Gospel.  This isn’t any sort of spiritualized poverty or hunger Jesus is talking about here.  This is straight up, not-enough-money-to-pay-the-rent, poverty.  This is a growling-stomach-that-doesn’t-know-where-to-find-a-meal kind of hunger. THAT is what Jesus is calls blessed. 

How is THAT a blessing? People see being poor and hungry as a pity or a challenge, or, with a cold, hard, heart, as something that is deserved… but a blessing? Not so much! Yet here we are with Jesus telling his disciples clearly, calmly and without stuttering at all, “Blessed are the poor and hungry” and as if THAT wasn’t already too much to make sense of, he takes it one step further and proclaims, “Woe to the rich and the full!”  

Most folks like Matthew’s version better because Matthew’s version allows us to SPIRITUALIZE the poverty and the hunger. That allows you and me and the TV preachers to still feel blessed by Jesus and still keep our private jets! But Luke’s version isn’t so easily manipulated. Luke’s version INSISTS that it is precisely those who KNOW that real, don’t-have-money-for-diapers poverty… those who KNOW through their own, deeply felt pain… their own terribly felt shame…. their own cruelly hard knocks and devastatingly broken life… THOSE are the ones who are blessed!  Jesus is saying that it is the broken, the hungry, the poor, the weeping, the ones who have slammed into the rock hard bottom of the deepest, darkest hole with the smoothest, most slippery sides… THOSE are the ones who are blessed, BECAUSE they are the ones who have come to the point where they understand that there is NOTHING… NOT ONE THING they can do, apart from God.  

The poor, broken, hungry and lost… THOSE are the ones who KNOW… who REALLY KNOW… that it’s ONLY through an unearned, totally free, completely unexpected, bring tears to your eyes, gift from God that they have any life at all. They KNOW it was ONLY through a Divine rocking of their world that they were able to find a bed, have a meal, and make it through that first day of sobriety.  They KNOW the truth… while the rest of us can still go on fooling ourselves into thinking we’re doing life all on our own.  The genuinely poor and hungry KNOW that in one way or another, no matter how well WE fool ourselves, we are ALL hungry, homeless, bankrupt and addicted, refugees without God’s infinite and unconditional love and grace poured out freely upon each and every one of us, long before we even begin thinking to ask God for it.  

Being poor, being hungry, being broken, being a loser are all held up by our world as the most horrible things you could ever be and from my personal bushes with those things, I STILL have to agree with Teviah… I may have been blessed by those times, but they sure didn’t feel like any great honor either! 

Yet, in what has thankfully become hindsight, (and will hopefully REMAIN hindsight!) I think I understand a little of what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples. Jesus was saying that when we find our lives inevitably broken, (and we all do, at some point, in one way or another) even though it’s horribly painful and frightening and terrible… it is those cracks in our lives that become a window through which we see the light of the Kingdom of God shining deeply and powerfully into our lives. 

In Japan, there is an art form called Kintsugi.  The artisan takes a ceramic bowl that has become broken and repairs it. You might expect them to hide the cracks but instead they do the exact opposite. The artist repairs the cracks with gold and that bowl, with the cracks now highlighted with that precious metal, becomes more beautiful and more valuable than before it was broken. Jesus tells us… that we are blessed when life drops us to the ground and we shatter like a ceramic bowl. Jesus insists that we are BLESSED by those experiences because it allows us to see more clearly the Divine Artist who is ALWAYS at work, filling the cracks of our broken lives with love... a substance more precious than gold, and through that experience we are made more beautiful and more precious than we had ever been before and then, because of our experience, we are better able to pass on God’s love to the rest of this broken world.

I think all of this is true and I also think all of this is very hard.  I still don’t like that seeing God at work in my life is best done through the painful cracks that come from being broken.  Now, I DON’T think Jesus asks us to go out and break ourselves and he certainly doesn’t ask us to break others so that they can discover this truth.  Jesus simply knew, that with enough years on this planet we each will eventually know what it is to be broken.  And because that is inevitable, Jesus wanted each of us to know that God, will take even that experience of being broken and fill in our cracks with a Divine love more precious than gold and continue to make each of us more beautiful and more valuable even through the pain of being broken.  So, as the Leonard Cohen song says, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Amen.